The Seeds We've Sown
by Kasan Soulblade
Summary: A hundred losses, even the devil has to learn from that.  She who lost what was spurned learns that she can never get it back and for that the world was lost. But perhaps with this unlikely ally she'll gain something else to replace it.  Slogra/OC.
1. Matters of Insanity

The Seeds we've sown.

Introduction: What you remind me of,

_To the unwary vict… excuse me, the reader,_

_Humble writer here, with a warning in tow. _

_For starters… this is an M fic and very much an AU. My notes uncensored as they are definitely mark this as an M piece, there will be occasional acts of sex, blood, gore, and crude language, it's the last as well as some ideas in the rough draft that have made me pick this ranking. As such you are warned. And I hope you read this, as I'm not likely to repeat myself until I get to the lemony bits._

_Now, to the warnings of a nonconventional slant. Congratulations, you've wandered into a mad lab of sorts. As such, this fic is an experiment, I don't know how far it will go… but I want something I've never seen before. I want to prove the impossible possible in my humble little way. In fandom and original work, I've never seen this done, ever. I want a melding of two conflicting genres. To top it off I want something of length. I also hope to present a protagonist who, while sympathetic, is as much antagonist as the villain on the opposite side of the fence. And I want it all in the same story._

_I'd also like a raise, to be paid for per word, and other unlikely yet similar things of the like but… well that's not happening either, is it?_

_Oh well, let's see if I can do this._

"Subject: You; what you remind me of.

I recall you, not face not hands, nor bitter voice, or cold demeanor. Your shadow's touch, I recall that.

Only that.

Do not pity such a paltry recollection.

The holes of my memory's surely parallel the holes in your head.

And those connected voids are all that keeps your heart in its breast."

Looking up from the papers, doctor considers patient, one black eyebrow raised. Without words, she says the obvious, "Poetry, for me, how sweet". Between them, lies a wall of glass with all the proper descriptors. Reinforced, bulletproof, all the standard bells and whistles. It does a fine job as fun mirror too, all its alterations distort his reflection, fade hers.

Thiers images, conjoined by the mundane median, are not a pretty picture.

The metal tray, that slides under between them upon the table, is the sole ingress between the translucent wall. It's the unspoken parley between his complete isolation and her pseudo freedom. She pulls the tray, his words from today's analysis lay before her. The snap as the flap shuts, it's reinforced too, on his side, to prohibit a more… brutal ingress than words on the paper.

A predecessor of his was creative, cruel, and that's why there's an opening now. An opening to work, mind, not an actual one.

She'd doubt her safety were there an _actual _opening… except with this one. Sardonic morbid humor aside, he's not as cracked as his peers and predecessors. He's not as cracked as he's deliberately striving to appear.

She's sure of it.

"You really must like the food here."

"Hmmm?" His gaze has canted onto the side, perusing some nearby shadow just over her shoulder for information. "Yes, it just has that…" He twists his lips, half moaning, half making a noise that was nearly pornographic, as if partaking the flavor of something positively succulent. "that flavor…" He sighed… lustily.

It's hard not to think of his voice as an invitation. It makes the man (mad or not ) a walking one way ticket to carnal misadventure whenever he opens his mouth. That god-damned pitch, silken, low, voice. It's the complete juxtapose to his…

He's laughing to a punch line she's missed. Nails on chalkboard, raspy, with exaggerated hisses interspaced throughout. Ah, and _that _is why he never scores with the ladies. An awful laugh, brimming humor, and the misfortune to love to laugh and to laugh at himself with gay abandon.

When the fit's passed –save for his eyes, they gleam, glitter with a softer mirth than that which he vocalizes- he smiles at her, ever careful not to show his teeth.

"So, Clarence, how goes it?"

"I'm torn, between tearing out my hair in frustration at your asinine refusal to re-assimilate into society or correcting your awful Hannibal Lector impersonation."

"Ohh… correct correct…"

Figure's he'd try, and fail (as he always does) to get her to "correct" He's well aware of his effect on her, his voice, which is why she suspects that he's pitched his tone to a nearly childish whine right now. Or, considering the fact that he's tucked his long legs against his chest (one equally long arm wound about them for support) he rocks back and forth, eyes wide, teeth not bared but grinning despite the handicap, he could be trying to enhance his "I'm being so childish" line right now.

She wouldn't bite; ask him about his childhood like all the others. She'd read his files. He'd been caught out spinning spiel after contradictory spiel by the last team (yes he'd earned his own team of professionals to better dissect his "insanity") and after being classified as a pathological liar had all been forgotten.

Until up come the rookie.

Save she wasn't the initial rookie.

He'd hated her predecessor with a nearly maniacal glee. Threatening all sorts of obscene things, but not the usual. Not the rape, torture, sessions some of his wing mates of Cycloid's Institute of the Deranged and Mentally Challenged would have. Not even the threats of murder, mayhem and bodily harm had passed from his lips.

Had they been, well the solution would have been a tranq, or a drip, depending on duration of hostility and the like.

No, he'd started telling her stories, innocent seeming things at first. Silly things that she'd banter about in the break room (screw confidentiality, when in the building gossip was gossip, beyond it they were professional) stories about a dog. "Fido" chewing the rugs, waiting on the top stairs for Mistress to get home, ecetera ect.

"Creepy how my little Elbert was just on the stairs, racing down to greet me. Hasn't done that since the arthritis got to his forepaws."

It was the last time she'd ever told one of the "stories". At least in the break room. There'd been one tale, one session with this "patient" in which Samatha Biggithin had come out in tears. Running out of the room in tears, she's raced to the Head's office and…

And she'd left work early, hadn't been back since…

Fire said the rumors, house fire, and coincidence, just happened that day.

Despite all the comforts of logic and the rational Samantha couldn't be coaxed back.

So Claudia Belmont had been given good old Sammy's heels to fill.

Well to _try_ to fill.

But isn't, not really, not until someone else comes along anyway. At least that's what the condescending glower of the institute's head keeps assuring.

Amazing really, what you can say without words. Just a gaze.

Click, snap. The breech, was closed, for now.

Her expression, which is both cold and bold by turn, summons forth an almost toothy smile. All the rocking stops and he uncurls, not wanting to hurt her ears (he's well aware the effect of his laughing, so he tones it down "cus I likes you shweet heart" he serenaded to her, first day in, first wince he'd summoned) he keeps his laughter inside.

She's had him express this resolve before, clocked him matter of fact. His record is at five minutes tops.

"Wasn't for you, for _her_, you understand? No hard feelings?"

And despite it breaking protocol, she smiles, nods.

They aren't supposed to give him anything you see, anything for him to draw on. No personality to like, no expression to read.

His intuition was almost psychic.

A guard walking by could almost expect to be hollered at "How's the kids? Jimmy-boy" the head of the institute had made one visit and left ashen when with utterly false sympathy -she's seen the tapes you see- the patient had offered his condolences of the director's wife's demise.

This, from the man who hadn't seen a newspaper, or talked to someone unrecorded for a year running and had no contacts beyond his doctor of the moment.

"Grrreat.. 'cept I ain't a tiger and can't abide the ultra sweet stuff. So don'ts sell me out, or try to." It isn't wide, you can't see his teeth at all, (save the edges, yellowed and brittle one and all) but there is a warmth to his ice blue eyes when he smiles, meeting her gaze all the while.

He'd be a charming man, an attractive one, and if it weren't for the little allusions of the reality of the situation seen by the eye at every moment... The pea green uniform tha marks him as one of the deranged and dangerous. How the fabric falls over his slender shoulders, obscuring his once fuller frame in it bulbous descent. The fact that he's allowed a belt (it's wrapped about his waist twice, except when while whim strikes him, and it isn't) because he needs it to hold up the massive pants he… doesn't favor… but insists upon. The dark rings, black shiners gifts of chronic sleep deprivation ("Its Charles ya see, a screamer, and not in a good way…") the odd laugh, the absent "s" tagged onto words that don't need it…

"Did you have a nightmare last night?"

"'Tween Charles and the dreams, a man don't sleep well here Ms. Belmont."

Did she mention manners, outrageous and charming in turn?

He's quite the puzzle.

Speaking of puzzles, he looks at her… no past her… playing his "let's read the shadow" role of his dementia.

It's his favorite game, one he peruses despite the literature he's offered, the pens and papers he's given, the music he could listen too.

He's just that well behaved, and that charming, they have to keep rotating his guards, his doctors and the like because he becomes so… well liked.

All accidental, he's not trying to be ingrating you see ("just the charm of my smile") yet turn by turn he repels. There's something subtly _off _about him. He's never held a job longer than a year, a drifter at heart, compiling to the facts is that not-so-little tragedy that all his friends and family were deceased…

Yet he has none of the signs of being anti social, or sociopathic (save with Sammy). The graphologist gave him a clean bill of mental health (save some ego issues, but hey, who hasn't a problem or two?) he'd openly admitted to "liking" to play with all their heads. So, from time to time he'd deliberately blotch one test or the other, the first move to any opening play session.

But… another off thing is that he rattles them off, talking about his dead and gone without any pain.

Except when it's someone else's dead and gone and he gives a damn about the person in front of him.

Then the pains all there, all too real.

Like the look he's giving her. He swallows it, an exaggerated motion that isn't deliberate, he's slack now, still. Still trying to smile, the expression isn't hanging quite right on his lips. A chill creeps up Dr. Belmont's back.

"Well," His voice is rough, like he's laughed too long and hasn't drunk enough to make up for it.

Save he hasn't, not with her, not today.

She makes sure of it, you see. Checks' his chart, checks with his nutritionist, and shuts him up herself when necessary.

"Something the matter?"

"Naw." He lies, it's obvious and all the more unsettling considering this is a man who's lied to professional psychologists and hadn't been caught until he deliberately let some fact slip. "Just… dreams you know? Bad dreams."

"Like what? Want to talk about it?"

Because if isn't consensual he clams up, it's the first rule he's taught her. You don't force the topic, any topic, with a man who refuses to give a name to anyone. He shakes his head, not quite denying (those are obvious, sometimes profane laced when he's feeling particularly sensitive that day) hesitant to… see her off.

"Keep it, on you, would you?" He nods his head indicating the folded paper in it's tray waiting on her side. He stands, staring at her all the while, never mind he's got nowhere to go he wants to be gone. "Might keep you smiling, a little while longer before… I heard you humming it, heard it on the radio before that… but I don't know all the words, just bits and pieces."

He closed his eyes, against some waking nightmare, smile fading, faded gone. She stood, materials gathered and sorted by unseeing hands. She'd have something to add to his file, that and something to pursue. His note… crinkles in her grip, to that he cracks open his eyes and not seeing her gone yet tries to smile.

It fails, he knows it, she knows it, and nods his farewell. She turns, long black hair whispering at her back. First hers fills her ears, then his, save his makes no sense despite hers being mere sound.

"Your… your granddad… Never a better man to hate... I'd be honored to be on opposite sides of the fence as it were if he weren't such a hard assed, short sighted, bastard. No hard feelings."

She's stopped now, utterly still as her heart staggers in her breast. Her blue eyes are wide and back to him besides he knows it, his tones softens, as do his words.

"Let him know that… that Slogra… before he bites that silver biscuit on speed steroids… tell him… no hard feelings."

In her pocket, clipits of a melody crinkle. The words surly run together, the ink weren't quite dried yet when he'd passed it though the wall. Still the meaning, when she opens it to pursue the words is clear, and isn't.

**"So come on baby (don't fear the reaper),**  
><strong>Baby take my hand (don't fear the reaper),<strong>  
><strong>We'll be able to fly (don't fear the reaper),<strong>  
><strong>Baby I'm your man...<strong>

**Love of two - is one,**  
><strong>here but now - they're gone,<strong>  
><strong>Came a last night of sadness,<strong>  
><strong>And it was clear that she couldn't go on...<strong>  
><strong>The door was open (and the wind appeared),<strong>  
><strong>The candles blew (and then disappeared),"<strong>

XXX

When next she sees him, after the news and the private nightmare that's become her life is just appearing she's near but not quite at tears. The world was falling about her ears, he knows that, meets her gaze, blue eyes devoid of the usual mirth that's marked their interactions from the start.

All that remained was a bitter understanding. Without prelude and pomp, he meets her red streaked eyes with his own. His voice is all growls hisses and laughter's croak is in attendance despite his lack of mirth. Form first syllable to last, it's thus.

"It's not like getting your heart torn out. You think it is, _but it isn't_."

He speaks with such surety, with such careful juxtapose to his previous banter she nearly bolts, surly wishes to run. He's insane, must be. … Even for a joke… this has gone too far…

And it's then, in that moment, she knows how Samantha feels, and why that woman had run.

And why she never came back.

But she can't, she doesn't, she isn't Samantha. Squaring her shoulders, she meets his gaze, this man whose named himself after… after… In Grandfather's deluded, delusional, journals that oh-so-carefully documented his decline (and how she's missed it she can't know, and it hurts, how it hurts to see what she missed too late to help!) after Deaths' right hand man. As if privy to her thoughts his lips lift, baring broken yellow edges. He smiles at her, for once, all teeth in full, brilliant, attendance.

"I'd think I'd know." Another contradiction, the hand he uses to reach out to her that the glass wall between arrests. The hand that he sets over his own heart, is equally tender, as if recalling a memory. "About getting hearts torn out."

XXX

What I dream: From the Files of patient alias "Slogra"

_Failure, thick as bile, swift as blood. One moment's lack of discretion and then… this…_

_This… diminishing, this… fading away._

_Lesser beings than him would have rages. He… he turned away, foe unmarked, vengeance vows unspoken._

_They have no place here._

_He finds his way to Father's feet, finds his way to Father's arms. Breathes staggered into final gasps, mouth slicked with life's necessary fluids, both slipping away._

_He is slipping away._

_Servant, scion, son…_

_Black, wings as soft as sin –for he knows sin, all seven, has indulged in each and every one- he lets go and is guided into black, through black, each thought a wonder as his essence is saturated in a dark so deep it smothers. And thus he diminishes, as all things must before Death._

_But he smiles, orifice twisting into a mannerism he's learned through all the many many years._

_And the many many failures._

_Death pervades, settling into each vein, roosting into his stilling heart, and there abides, familiar, a comfort._

"_He has learned." Speaks the voice, lodged between hollowing vein and stiffing sinew, He resounds louder in the growing gaps of a palpitating heart. "Mathis, of madness, and its cycle. He has learned and thus attempts to supersede my authority. But you..."_

_Unsaid: Oh son, oh scion…_

"_You my Servant, shall not fall and rise with him. Never to fall, until the last day, thus stands your destiny. The life I forbade to fall will only be sundered at the death of the Final day, so say the Scriptures. So was promised me. You will not partake this mad dance down hells' darkest spires. The angels conspired to make this world threefold, Mathis aspires to raise hell's place above that of heaven's loftiest towers and crash it all down."_

_Cool hands slide over the broken ribs, over the collapse punctured lungs._

"_Breathe."_

_And though it is agony, though it burns, he must._

_Up and to the left (not so different after all) that touch of ice steals over the still heart._

"_Beat."_

_Beat and beaten. Death pulls back, letting the tortured, reformed shell of its own hand right fall. To rest, for a while. Catch his breath, than he'd rise, he'd plan (like father like son) and thwart this morbid dooms hand._

_The world couldn't end, not yet, not now._

_It wasn't the appointed hour, the cycles weren't complete._

_Not by half._

"_Sleep."_

_So he does, through centuries. Rocked both forward and back, by time's shattered gyrations of potential's failure, he sleeps._

_On a bed of sin born feathers._

XXX

Closing A/N: The song is in bold is "Don't fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult, it isn't mine, and I'd never pretend it to be otherwise. All copyrighted materials belong to their respective owners, I'm just borrowing a little here a little there and playing with it.


	2. What a world

What we've Sown

Chapter 2

What a world what a world…

Her phone was ringing and she picked it up without a thought. No thought of disturbing patients, no thought of why that ringtone was so unfamiliar.

It was just instinct.

Less than five minutes later she was beyond thought. Lunch steamed merrily in it's carboard box, forgotten, one fork rising bravely out of the mashed potatoes like an albino Lochness from sea foam.

"When… wh-"

Coherence had left her some time ago.

"He left a note." Father was on the other line, hurried and harried. The omnipresent silence that served as background noise told her why. Silence meant "the office" which in turn meant work. She alsmot felt bad for the poor sou who'd had to make the call to him in the first place.

H ws crosse than the proverbial badger when rialed. Calling during work was cause for him to be rialed, emergency or no. Tragedy or no.

Such was a childhood lessons, one of her first, learned so long ago the bitter taste it evoked had become familiar, almost welcome.

"What did the note say?"

She knew grandfather, and despite or maybe because of his… oddness… she'd loved him unconditionally. It was more than she could say about father. Work was his love, the office his altar, and he was a regular attendee in his worship of one. Dogged, fanatical even. The light of his laptop was divine, a Trojan the work of Lucifer.

Never mind all claims to the contrary.

"What did he say?"

"The note?" Father hedged, trying and failing to sound innocent.

"You read it, didn't you?"

His silence was damming. Of course he had. Nevermind that there had been two notes, one for him, one for her. Despite his distance, the emotional devide (because physically it wans't that far, he lived uptown, she downtown, it wan't insurmountable) h still harbored that infuriating, absent minded fatherly side. Some half smothered instinct made dad go through the motions of "protecting his little girl" from time to time.

Nevermind she delt with the insane and unbalance every day.

Nevermind she'd be better equipped, better traned to deal with such a note., It was her calling. And those last gleaming from the one she loved, she could distance herself enough to see what went wrong. There was such a thing as professional distance.

Her first clenched in her lap. Knotted so hard, it hurt.

She hurt, because you couldn't love the dead because they didn't love you back. They were gone. Granddaddy and all his crazy, his piggy back rides, the s'mores over the fire…

She could still remember him holding them, though they smoldered and squished in his thick calloused hands.

He was fearless then. She'd been convinced of that a childhood ago. Fearless, and as an adult she knew he still was in an odd way. Were the world a thing of black and white, with great deeds needing to be done he would have thrived.

In this grey, this world of cause and clause, with politics warring with economics, to those more evasive dragons he faltered. Fell. Failed.

"I'll scan them, send them doc file via e-"

"No." There was no vehemence needed, the negative was more than enough to stop the lackluster efforts and steal his voice besides. "I… I want to pick them… mine… up."

"Stop by the office then. They're here with a few of his "things"."

Tone supplied all the adjectives needed. Disgusting, primitive, savage, unclothe, unclean…

What else could you expect from a man who lived in the middle of nowhere? Eking out a living in a log cabin, where the most "modern" thing he laid claim to was indoor plumbing?

And that radio. That scratched, clunky, but durable thing she'd snapped up on a yard sale while driving out to see him. She'd snuck it onto him two Christmas' back, not sure it would work but his face… When it had hummed out "Oh Silent night" the rapture… He'd love it, they'd sung along to static marred carols while the snow was flying and the fire dying.

Her hand swipped at her face, furiously scrubbing out tears she shoulder be sheading. Yes, it was sad, but logic… She rushed to the old route, and found it wanting.

Logic didn't really have a place here.

Despite her best the tears came and fell. Arm heavy, she mad a squish of her mash via one uncaring elbow in the mash.

He heard something, surely he heard some of it. To those odd half formed sounds he called out. "Sweetheart, are you there?"

Dad hadn't caller her that since highschool graduation. Granddad had never stopped.

"You alright?" He pressed, clearly disturbed by the continuing quiet.

No.

"Yeah, you?"

Becaue, this is your dad, you know. Your dad. Not mine. The guy whose arms you waled into, who picked out up when you fell, and held you close. The broadsholdered (bbecause all the men of Belmont were broadshoulderd since hwo knew when) lout who'd bend over double checking for ghoolies and ghasts that you insisted lurked under the bed each night for a year straight.

You know, dad, your dad. Who did all that for me, and twice as much for you?

Father coughted, wonder of wonders. The offices sacred silence was broken by a sound of human orgin. Hallelughla, praise be. Papers rustled, no the paper of the note, but those of numbers and collums. She could tell, it had that stiffness a handwritten note never coul hold.

Workaholic scripture held tight, surely father looked on.

"I've got a meeting."

And with that, she knew they were done. Till holidays at least. Unless something worse happened.

But considering it was just hi and her now.. she didn't expect the worst, not for a while anyway.

She sighed, the sound broken, no that he'd ever notice.

"Yeah, I'm gunna take the rest of the day off ehre." Id he gasp, possibly, surely he stiffened black eyes flashing their disaprovel. "I'll nip by later, pick up-"

"It." He brightened, she'd have craed if she weren't already. "Great, that's great…" Brightness faded, failed, turned flinty a mere three sylibles in. "the box under the desk, take that too."

He never asked if she had the key, he'd given her one she held onto it. Blemonts were like that, great keepers of the little things.

It was those big things that were lost along the way that were hardest to reclaim. She hung up, wondering and weeping. When had they lost that bit, that piece that bound them all together.

Wehre was her family?

XXX

A box, a bag a book, a hand revolver (it's ammo spent) a knife, a coiled bit of leather that was both long and torn.

She felt as if she was amongst the remains of some doctor Suess book gone wrong.

The length was ripped ragged, threefold split, and if it weren't for the savagery of its tearing she would have thought it symbolic.

She's spread about Granddad's worldly possessions , and the sterile office of executive Mr. Samual Alex Belmont finally got a life.

It was a stark, primitive, savage sort of life, but beggars couldn't chose.

That'd irritate him, he deserved it anyway.

With that little spot of spite to warm her life she set granddad's relics in the center of her fathers life. Knife here, gun there. The contrast gave her a sort of courage to unfold the note. The pages (note indeed, it was a letter damn it!) were stapled by father's hand. He was never trusting of pressure, and lines, and hopeful intent.

She looked down, and never mind he was gone, Granddady's voice rose up, a final gift of lines and pen and fond remembrance giving him voice beyond the mortal realm.

He'd have liked that thought, she mused, loved it, it had something of faith, something he grieved that neither of his children held to.

"_My dearest heart_

_I stand a weary man, old before infirmary snaps my final years. Between twin mountain I've lingered in the shadows, in their valley. To aspire to meet the peak of one I would have to quit the other. In knowing this, I decided long ago I shall not._

_So, in this eternal twilight, amongst the debris of landslide, I sip on the leavings of the occasional squall, and feast leanly. I sit in this dark ,and find riches turn by turn._

_Do not grieve me my indecision, I don't, I shant._

_Though heaven is surely bright, I would happily abide this simple shadow for eternity if only for the pleasure of waiting. Waiting for my loved ones to come home. To come back to me._

_Hope and dreams do not fill the plate, but on this staple I survive. Love, richest bounty, has been gifted to me by you._

_Your smile._

_Your laughter._

_I recall both and am full. Filled_."

Many spaces scratched and scrawled out, words, ominous, darker than the above, stood out. Stark, screaming, all accidental he scared her.

"_Forg- attack…_" And an almost complete thought, terrifying for how it had been slashed out, not with ink, but force, leaving behind a true void that had no frayed edges to fill. "_What I should have told you all those-_"

Away from the rest one word, on the papers edge. _"…bite…"_

Alone, stark underlined, smeared perhaps with sweat (tears) surly.

"_No Antidote_"

A few more lines down, she scanned the cleanliness, the void unmarked, it was direct contradiction to the above. She looks for some sign, some connection between the ramblings above to the clearer (if shaky) text bellow. Nothing, finding nothing she looks down, no warning, nothing to guild her.

"_God Forgive Me._

_If this world were kinder, as merciful as those lands at odysseys' end… For what remains for us to find? In this world where we've mapped out every road, charted every unforgiving angle. What else remains for us? If the world were kinder, I could hold my peace._

_The world is not kind._

_From the edge I look inward and quake,_

_From the edge I look out and break._

_The view is too much the same._

_Forgive forgive forgive forgive forgiveforgive forgive forgive…_

_I've been through the logs. One hundred, two hundred time, no, more, surely more. Now, this final time, I seek and they fail me. There is no antidote, not for the lycanthrope's bite, nor anyway to still it's insidious, distortion it calls venom._

_I will not turn_

_I shall not._"

She looks up then with eyes wide like a child's would be. Her eyes shine with fear. True fear, even as she looks about. Was it bullet, or blade? Both were silver and she knows all the clichés. She wonders which he took. Which was his cure when those mysterious logs filed him, so spectacularly?

Looking at the relics of his insanity (no longer an oddity, for it hadn't been harmless, not at all) she grieves. The tears come down in a torrent.

XXX

"Morning sunshine."

He's back to his banter, but that awful hiss is always there now. He does nothing to obscure it, dipping in and out between deep and raw, raucous and silken. Through it all, that reptilian affection of his remains. He watches her every move, commenting on the stiff set of her shoulders, the fragility of her composure. And while others might have seen only leering cruelty in his bald comments there still remains… A glint of _something _about his eyes.

He'd reached out to comfort her after all.

Never mind the wall between them, he'd offered comfort, and condolences in his crude sort of way.

"Been boning up on ol' Grand Daddy's booklet? Find it, enlightening?"

She takes her seat, he's being extra nice today, no comments about the redness of her eyes.

"Ya know… I knew a harpy with eyes that shade of red. She cried for joy though, no pain. Her kind, they couldn't feel pain, not 'till the very end."

The newest slant to his insanity (which she's sure of now, very sure) his stories about things that could never be. Never mind that the correlate with the page she's reading in her book. Every single time.

"Must be nice…" She murmured distractedly, setting up paper, setting up pen. He watches each motion with unblinking eyes, baring his broken teeth wildly.

"Oh… another test!" He blinks then, startled out of his joy by something she's said. Clearly the train upstairs isn't quite as swift today. Must not have had his daily cup of Joe with Joe…

Joe who was getting transferred tomorrow for charges of "fraternizing" with the patients, the guard's lucky he wasn't getting fired. Economy being tough and all.

What a world.

"Hey now, wait just one moment here! You… _What_ did you just say?"

"I was merely hypothesizing on how it would feel not to feel pain." The Doctor replied.

"Um hm, and while you're lying about that how about you tell me the truth about this: Any long and wistful thoughts 'bout jumping off of bridges too?"

"And when did _you_ become the professional shrink?"

He smirks at hearing her use a word he's been trying to drill into her head since day one. But that small victory wasn't enough to pull him off the scent. He's a hunter, in his own quiet way, and she's just offered him some quarry.

"I didn't, but you let things drop, you're letting Death get you down."

Her eyebrow raises, her lips thing into a line. While it's petty she snaps up the pages to the test he'd requested. Yes, sadly, he knows all the tests by name. Ink blot is one of his favorites and she might have humored him, would have tried to anyway, until then, until now that was.

Surely he sees her snap the pages up, stuff them away, and if he missed that well he certainly didn't miss her stand.

Turning her back on him also helped ram the message home, and if it didn't well she'd have to re-categorize his intelligence.

"Your Ganddad, he wasn't nuts, I swear it!" Incredible! Was he on the outside looking in, no? He had no right to assess anyone's sanity. Perhaps he never had.

Her heels click as she stomps to the door.

"Before… before you go off to get transferred somewhere else, think about this. I wouldn't rag on you so's much if you were grieving. _Really_ grieving. But you aren't, so you're fair game."

"When did you become God's jester then, so high and mighty that you can make the whole world and it's pains your carnival?" She spat, there's a buzz the door leading out will be open soon. A door, guards, and distance would separate them. She's looking forward to it this time around.

"You can't lock it up inside. You'll be joining me here if you do…"

"Answer my god-damned question!"

He blinks at her. A slow motion flutter, that seems more reptilian than his affected hissing. And it's natural. Something tells her that this, where everything else wasn't, is _natural_. He rears back, not in fear or shock but amused surprised.

Then he smiles.

"Finally. We're getting somewhere now."

The bolt clicks, the door pulls open. It's Joe, and he's looking at her with concern so obvious she wants to cry. The burning she's been holding in since she read Grandad's letter is back to the fore. Is _this _what he wanted, the mad man beyond the glass? To see her cry, not merely see hinting's of the fits before?

"It's for him and you you're like that, you know." He's divined her thoughts, and the knowledge doesn't scare her like it should. "When you cry, _really_ cry, it's gotta be for Something beyond Yourself. _That's_ what I'm looking for."

A pause, Joe looks at her in askance. Behind her, beyond her, the man whose named himself after deaths' right hand carries on.

"And to answer the God-Damned question –never thought I'd _ever _hear a Belmont do that by the way, what a world, what a world…- I'm not God's jester, and I don't do the same for old cloven foot downstairs either. Being friends with Death, being bound to Death... I learned something down the line, something I'll share. Time wears away all expression, even the dead's, and under that final façade called rigorous mortis... you might say we're all smiling inside."


	3. you're fired

The Seeds We've Sown

Chapter 3

She'd read it, from cover to cover. Front to back, even teasing the edges for a time.

Nothing was forthcoming. For the first time in her life none of the content of the book stuck, Still, despite it's are and wear –brittle, it was brittle and yellow, judiciously anointed with a crusty brownish red that was better not to be dwelled upon0 there was an almost scientific charm to the contents.

A peculiar order.

Name, habitat and the like were lists. Time of activity –a crescent or sunburst declared which, a quaint yet artistic aside- was filled in. All in all it was a well thought out endeavor. And if it weren't for the insanity inherit…

"Bloody bones born of a side of a futile last stand.. indestructible…"

She'd of found the whole a wonderful read. It harkened back to the age old natural science logs. She'd loved nature, nature programs and the like. Granddad had too…

Except, somewhere he'd tagged a "super" to the nature of science, and she'd lost him that day as surely as when he thought he'd wrangled with werewolves and came out second best.

There were no such things as werewolves.

And that was a fact.

Allure, charm, or otherwise, there were no such things as monsters. Only the deranged, the dangerous, and the misunderstood. All were to be treated like the victim of the tragic illness' that they were, their minds tended (if possible) and then like the half wild things they were, they were tamed, released into society with their more dangerous egocentrics smoothed away for easier integration.

All about here were the comforts of her self-declared truth. They had many names, many faces, psychology was her favored facet, chemistry a passing fancy, biology a touch and go love, as for physics… she loved to hate it.

But loved it despite.

Pinned against her wall (her crucifix of sorts) framed in somber black, printed on pure white was her diploma. Set just so, to keep the crazy at bay and to stay in the corner of her eye, no matter how she was twisted about in some other corner of the room.

Such wards and comfort about her, she was learning were a pale comfort when confronted with her Grandfather's madness. Leather bound, blood anointed, it's baptismal is the dismal working of the degrading mind, she'd pursued it amongst this front of sanity and found herself feeling sick.

Grandfather had fallen.

As had her father, save his bane was work, distance, and distraction.

Traitorous treasonous, thought: _How alike we really are_. Realized then suppressed. She slammed Grandfather's book shut, shoved it into the depths of her cabinet for good measure and locked the whole away.

Mr. "Slogra's" file awaited her attentions, coaster to her families apparent insanity. The higher-ups wanted a decision, keep or release… Strange eccentric or potential maniac? The decision was hers. And they'd damn her for it each way. Chose release and they'd keep, slandering her name and reputation for making such a "womanly" overly humane, unprofessional, decision. Chose keep and they'd keep him within that cage 'till he rotted.

And they'd blame her for his cost of keep, a more subtle slander and longer lasting.

It would last until he died.

Or worst of the worse, they'd release him just for spite….

And in actuality, she didn't know which was worse. Only that his release at her hands would ruin her and his being kept at her word would destroy her.

Speaking of useless decisions, she had another before her. As to where they were going to "transfer" her. See, Joe wasn't the only one in hot water.

They all were, one way or another. All those who'd interacted with Death's right hand were being "released from service" in one way or another.

Call it fired, there was more honesty to the whole.

They all were being fired.

"Vindictive bastard."

The last was for the head director of the institute… The man who'd cheerfully informed her of the camera in her office, that secret one that'd been installed all the better to spy on her. What's-his-name had ordered it, and bastard was the kindest nominative she was going to give him. He hadn't left a big enough of an impact to really deserve his name to be recalled beyond that. So, while it was petty, she indulged in a lukewarm vengeance of a kind.

A slander all her own.

And though it was futile and it wasn't going to change anything, she'd added layers upon layers. One contact (oh the joys of social networking) and some rather disturbing information had come to her hands. And information like that was meant to be shared.

She stood, snapping up the papers, and left it at that for now.

XX

A few hours later and he'd wolf whistled at her coming. It was a tame greeting, since her latest breakdown in Joe's arms he'd treated her grief with an honest respect and a careful avoidance that she'd appreciated.

Speaking of appreciation he kicked up his "lusty" act another level and howled in that low voice of hi. No hisses today. And none of his lapses were recorded. The uppers had tweaked the system three months ago, and the cameras in certain cells didn't play twenty four seven like they should have. No, in certain cells (of the not so dangerous) they were turned off for days at a time.

Corporate's excuse was "to save on the electric bill".

Her response, had been a wry "bull shit".

She hadn't made any friends this day.

But that wasn't the point.

She nursed a killer headache and a healthy dose of contempt for her supervisor this morning. For all of them. His eyes raked her up and down taking in the lack of "professional attire" with active curiosity. He scooted his chair as close to the glass as the table would allow, smiling all the while.

"Green's definitely your color! So who's the lucky fellow?"

His chatter obscured the fact that he tried to scoot closer still, those pesky things such a s physics got in the way but that hadn't stopped his effort until it failed.

"Please… No poetry today."

She took her seat with a careless thump a direct contrast to her studious gown of green and pinned up hair. Normally she'd left it down, something he'd always approved of. And considering there was glass between them, and he wasn't overtly hostile she'd indulged his little whim from the start.

Despite her small defiance to his previous expected norm he didn't seem irritated by it, not in the slightest.

_I've gained the approval of a mad man, lucky me_.

Oblivious to the slant of her thoughts he nodded. "Fair enough." His blue eyes slid over again, his smooth face creasing in through and he clearly came to some unpleasant conclusions if the follow up frown said anything.

"Bloodies layer of hell, you too?"

"Me too." She affirmed with a little sigh. Pulling open the flap, he heard that and thoughtfully pushed his tray though. "I just came out of my "your fired meeting" this is my last stop on the nutter tool."

"I could be insulted… Probably should be. Allergic to nuts and all…"

"You miss out then."

_Click, snap;_ A shove and the tray was on his side.

"You supposed to be here?"

"No."

He nodded, then pulled up. The flap relented soundlessly and the pagers of a report she wasn't supposed to know even exist were in front of hm. He flipped though them idly, all previous gregariousness failed him all at once. He actually paled as he read on.

Like any sane, rational being would have.

Certainly she had.

Before him was his new treatment regimen. A list really, of medicines, their doses, and the like. It was as a whole, designed to subdue, sedate, and would eventually cause the recipient of the program to fall into a coma.

Under the med list were the following stricture.\s

Patient interaction policy:

_No Socialization with sfall (all checkups are to be performed in a straightjacket)_

_No excessive intellectual stimulation (patient excitable)_

_Bi annual status assessment by certified psychologist (Per Patient history of encouraging fraternization this should be a temp. each time)_

"You really shouldn't have ragged the director about his wife."

"I'm seeing that." He whispered as he set the papers down on his side of the table. Curious that, not the flap. "What are they going to do to you?" He wave a hand, as if to say "for all of this" or "for what you just did."

"It doesn't matter."

"Hell it doesn't!"

She closed her eyes, sighed. "Assessment." She opened her eyes, and there he was looking so damned concerned. "They found the note, the book. Did an inspection yesterday, forced open the drawer and found.. .everything…"

They're holding your granddad's… illness... against you?"

"He was delusional." She explained, quoting the company's representative verbatim. "Sometimes it's genetic."

"Bullshit."

She cracked a small grin, sometimes just sometimes…

"That's what I said."

"Really?"

"It's on tape."

Another whistle, this one appreciative for all the right reasons. "I'd say I'm a bad influence but I'm not feeling guilty at the moment."

"Don't, ever, you've got nothing more than a taste for the oddest food against you. Most people hate hospital chow."

He snorted, tried to smile, but looked too sick for it to genuine.

"There's an outside panel meeting about your case tomorrow. They'll do blood work, that means this is the one test you get to be clean for," he knew her policy against pill popping, and nodded, "and it's an impartial outside audience."

No emphasis needed, he looked thoughtful, his face scrunching up just so.

"I hope," she stood. "That you take it seriously."

Like all the others, he hadn't.

"Belmont." She paused at the sound of her last name bereft of its title. "One question; why you doing this? It's curtains for your job, they'll catch you, you know."

A buzz, boots stomping near, their privacy was over and done with. The cameras were likely on. But she'd known that already.

"It was already over, before it started."

"You didn't answer the question you know. Evasion, Doc?"

"Hardly." She snorted. "The truth-" the last one, for she'd never see him again… So why not? A little honesty never hurt. Perhaps it'd even the scale against her vengeance of the hour. He tapped his long fingers against the pages of the purloined report.

It was over, after all, nothing left to hide.

She sighed.

"Because, despite hating Sam's guts, you gave her just enough info to save her dog. She lost everything, _except_ her dog. "She smirked at his startled look. "For being death's right hand man in those wacky dreams of yours…" The hint hung between them, he smirked back baring rotten teeth.

"Don't call me soft." He warned.

Locks clicked, the door banged open, cutting off their repartee. She never hated the sound more.

Director and guard (a new soul, steely expression, grizzled face, it was a good match) came in. Matching each other step with step. Great minds indeed… One white clad and portly the other blue clad and muscular with a perchance for hormonal injection to help it along. He looked an Orc from The Book, but she'd never tell anyone that. Both were watching her with sullen looks.

"Mrs. Belmont." The director growled. "You've given us quite a chase."

To that she smiled. "Really? In high heels?"

Guard blinked, director glowered, they were quite the matched set. So she'd give them a hand along. Baring said hand before her she flourished one finger, to better make the point.

"One: I'm not married."

"You are on tape, think of your futu-"

"Two:" Up came the second digit. "Hell will freeze over before I get a reference from you, you bastard."

The Director flushed, form the back behind his wall of glass Slogra laughed.

"Third: I quit."

Then, to ram the point home, she lowered first and third digit, just in case he didn't get the message. A thud from behind, he'd fallen over, more likely than not. Laughing so hard that something surely broke inside Slogra screeched in mirth. The Guard, expressionless despite having a mobile face, stepped forward, restrained her arms, and cut off the show.

"You're leaving premises, now _Miss_."

Despite the indignity of being so gripped, she grinned. "With pleasure."


	4. Cup of sugar

The Seeds we've sown

Chapter 4

_Authors' Notes,_

_Well despite this fic's staggering unpopularity I've more to tell, and so tell I shall._

Three months of debasement and degradation (AKA job hunting) but she'd found a steady job that sorta linked up to her education. A job, a new place to live, and while it was a step down it had its perks.

And one of those perks was wafting up from under her door. Saturating the very air with its presence and smelled wonderfully of...

"Bacon's done, God Ciss, hurry up and get your ass down here 'fore the chow get's cold!"

Tossing off the blue comforter she braved the faux wooden floors that morning. And like all the other spurts of bravery was rewarded with the same old revelation. The floor was freezing. Never mind, it made her run faster, search harder, and find her pair of pink fluffy slippers quicker. Sheathing her feet, she was now properly braced to meet the day. So meet it she did, with a shuffle and a yawn, tying up her loose bathrobe all the while.

Despite her gender, she didn't indulge much in the stereotype beyond her slippers. Her robe was not a fuzzy atrocity of pink, making her a walking advertisement for stomach soother. Rather it was a cool forest green that hung and clung depending on the breeze and how tight the belt was.

Steel clapped against steel, in her eternal impatience Claudia's roommate Clarice was clapping pots together. The neighbors were going to complain, again. Stupid paper thin walls and bi-ped elephants for roommates they had plenty to complain about. But that's what you got when you lived on the second story apartment when you had a roommate with the tack of a bore and an eternal "I'm late" complex…

And as if aware she was nearly breaking the trend…

"I gotta get to work! Chows on the stove! Eat or it'll crisp! I'm (_insert unsurprise here_) late!" Cassini's tossed the much abused irony into the nearest non cooking surface. Hopefully it would be the sink this time, and not the open fridge like last. Footsteps at a staggering run, a slammed door and... Wait for it.

Tires screaming, scraping up gravel and with a heart stopping roar her co-inhabitant had shifted from park to drive, reverse, than drive again, and was gone. No concern for the pedestrian in her manner at all.

All was well with the world.

Except for Cassini's boss, but that was a given.

Smiling, glad it was her day off Claudia Belmont shook her head at her roommates fobites and went off to save breakfast, again.

Heaven help them both if she got sick, then the whole house would be "crisping" quite nicely.

While odd, Cassini wasn't unhinged. Had she been at her old job, well she wasn't, so no rooms for excitable (going for a "_whatever"_ degree) roommates didn't have to be booked. And, considering her past experience, if it wasn't unhinged it was livable.

Sorta.

Sometimes.

But only if breakfast wasn't a total toss.

The hall was bypassed, its evil asymmetrical geometric messes called rugs were _not_ tripped over –a wonder of wonders- and journey done she was in the kitchen. A small walk in, white tiled with white walls, white stoves tops, and white counters (to better encourage the cleaning mania or so the installer hopped) bored her out of her mind. So she pulled out the yellowish mayo, the brown wheat bread, and set to adding a bit of color to the mess. A quick flip of the switch and the toast was on its way to toasting, the crumbs dropped added a spot of color she was loath to brush away.

So she didn't

It was when she was bent over double, seeking out the elusive tomato that it happened.

Thoughts filled with mundanely till they surely overflowed…

Claudia Belmont wasn't one for breakfast. Breakfast foods were like sunrises, they didn't inspire, so they were ignored, slept through, and replaced with a more sensible lunch. She'd skip the lettuce, scrapped some charring bacon off the plate, and call it BLT anyways… A pop, she half rose to the toast's call. But the want of a tomato made her hunch under again. It was the knock that undid her. Caused _her_ to pop. She smacked the back of her head into the fridge's chilled ceiling and wiggled back and up.

"Ouch… Son of a…"

_Knock knock…_

A throwback from childhood long spent…

_Who's there?_

She opened the door, they were all adults here, whoever was on the other side could just deal… So she pulled open the door, and gapped. Gap became glower as he smirked up at her. Familiar eyes, familiar face, she'd spent forever trying to blot him from her mind after all.

Leaning against the frame long limbs stretched, longer fingers twiddling, his wave went for shy and failed. It was those eyes that gave it away, gave the game up. They were never shy, ever shining.

"Miss me?"

"No."

And with that she slammed the door in his face.

He managed to look hurt, before impact, than was hurt as the wood smacked into his long nose.

"Son of a… Seriously Belmont, if you're going to kill me use the damned whip!"

Which was split thrice, save he didn't know. Couldn't know. She'd never told him.

And like all those times before.

"Unless you haven't gotten around to mending it ye-"

She took a quick trip, snapped up two things and at journey's end ripped open the door a final time. Cooking knife in one hand, family remnants in the other, he backed up at her coming. Even with one hand nursing a tender nose he managed to look intimidated.

"Here, take it, get out."

She threw the whip at him, he managed a fumbled the catch.

Another slam, a thud (his head this time, hopefully it'd give the man an improvement to his overall condition) and it was done. She was done. Done with him, just like her good mood was done. Do one good deed (slightly shady, but still good at its heart) and this was what she got? Next time she'd let the little old lady cross the street on her own, kick the nearest dog, and cheat on her taxes for good measure.

"Wah… I can't… It burns, god damn it Belmont, it bloody _burns_!"

"Say I'm melting, I'll buy that first!" She hollered over her shoulder. "You've got five minutes before I call the cops on you… you…"

_Life wrecking, asinine, creepy, psychopath, with a reaper complex_…

She meant to say that. Would have said that. Save the smell, something _was_ burning, and it _wasn'_t the bacon.

She staggered to the door, opened it, and stopped believing in sanity at the sight before her. He was holding the whip, had caught it because of some damned masochistic instinct she supposed. And his hands... Where the threads of the damaged whip hung he was smoking. Honest to god, he was leaking black smoke, withering, smoldering, where that (not so) ordinary piece of leather hung.

"God."

She moved before thought, pealed it off, risked her own hands by wrapping as much as she could about her own before pulling the whole up and off. That way none of it could fall and hurt him further. Throwing the whole aside, some fumbling required, she dragged him in. The couch, closest, cleanest (sorta) she eased him down and down he went with a grunt, whole hand nursing the burnt.

Inane as it was. "Are you alright?"

So much for leaving that good person complex behind, she'd have to pick a new resolution next year.

"Fine… fine… No, NO!" She froze, halfway between him and the phone imbedded on the wall, shocked by the sheer volume of his denial. "No," the denial was calmer now, ending in a gasp. "Don't call the medics, one stint in loony central's enough..." He hissed, no throw back to reptilian inclination this time, this was pure pain. "'S'heal'in' on its'own…"

And though he shuddered, and was pale, and possibly insane one glance back showed her impossibility and her sanity was further unhinged at the sight.

Though deep and ugly (and leaking black fluid this time, a step up from smoke but awful besides) his wounds were healing. No longer did she imagine she could peak at the redish-white of exposed bones. A glance away when she considered fetching ice and what she could wrap it in and a look back revealed that he was healing. Hellishly fast. The "gapping" wounds had become deep red bars that, under even her skeptical eyes, were puffing out, towards scardom.

Sick, she swallowed, trying not to puke. For sanitations sake, she looked away, even as he sighed with relief. A creak indicated he'd leaned back. One peak showed that he'd stretched both unblemished hands before him. Canting one eye up, he watched her, even as he went about rolling the pasty wrists back and forth. One finger wiggle and he set both hands in his lap, turning to face her in full.

As for Claudia Belmont, she stood, frozen between the phone and him, movement the furthest thought from her mind.

She'd seen a miracle, a wonder…

"Bloody hell woman, no one tell you about that damned whip? Its plague, and fire, and madness, and worse than all of that to my kind. It was consecrated when that sort of thing actually meant something…"

From the hands of a self-proclaimed devil no less

Seeing she was gone, and more than gone, he flashed her a smile, no glass between them to dull the yellow of his baring. "You alright there, Belmont?"

"F...fine.. what.. what do you want?" She stiffened, go some of the steel and stiff back to her posture. She'd… seen things… that's all. Seen things, a minor hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and stress more likely than not. Delusion affirmed she glowered down at him, even as he grinned up at her.

"Would you believe me if I asked for a cup of sugar?"

"No."

"Damn and I had some killer brownies I was gunna make to. Housewarming gift you know, welcoming myself to the neighborhood and all that…"

She groaned, just had to. And this devil, the Devil's supposed right, he just laughed.


	5. The keening

The Seeds We've Sown

Chapter 5

He'd asked for water, no food, no pain medicine, no nothing save a sip. She'd given him some medicine anyway, Tylenol, but it was something and that soothed her conscious. So he sipped, lounged in her couch, and took the whole of it in his sprawl. Proving to be the perfect juxtapose, she sat on her chair's very edge, back ram rod stiff, muscles neatly knotting from tension. Eyes half closed, he studied her and then set the water to jiggling with the roll of his wrist.

Impressive really, considering he was drinking form a clunky mug. Another sip, and he set his repast done, study done he struggled for sitting and flopped instead.

"Damn, fluffy couch anyone?"

She almost smiled, might have, save she spied the whip on the floor. What it brought to mind (wounds and healing and hell altogether, a curious combination.) stilled the gesture. Following her eyes, with a twist and half rise, he quieted as well. But then, if one believed his delusional ramblings, he and that whip had quite the history.

"So… how've you been? Moving on and all that?" He drawled, turning away from the broken whip with the barest of shudders to give away what he was thinking about.

"I've been busy, working." And though mundane to its core, she carried on. "Got a new job... Moved a few times."

Moved away from her old haunts, away from him, from the potential of ever running into him. Those sentiments didn't have to be worded; her tone affirmed and confirmed her feelings. As did her glare at statement's end. Looking hurt, he made another go at sitting, and though he was slouched horrible he was upright.

"Really Doc. I didn't think we'd been getting along so badly. Most of your ancestors were trying to stake me and whip me to pieces by now. And here we are, just talking. I thought I was making some headway towards being civil and all."

She sighed, and he waited for whatever enlightening thing she had to offer. When he didn't see what he was doing (in actuality, at that very moment he was bent over. Fetching his glass, one straighten –and near fumble later-

_There was something wrong with his hands, he moved as if there was something wrong with_-, rebellious thought squelched, she swallowed.

- and he was taking another draw) and when she was sure he'd never see she decided to enlighten him. Once and for all.

"Look…" Nominatives tripped her up, what would she call this man, whose name she'd never learned?

"Slogra." He prompted, reinforcing his dementia with a broken bitter smile.

"Yes... well…" She studied the walls, books books everywhere but not a painting or window to speak, still she refused to look at him. "It's nothing personal, but I… I don't want this."

A click, he'd found the nightstand set by the couches arm by the sound. Glass in place he stirred, and she dared a glance. He was the stiff backed one now, stiff backed and glowering.

"You're telling me, months and months in that hell hole, all for the sake of arranging to meet you… You _still_ don't believe? Never mind what I've shown you? What I did?"

"You're insane." She gentled the announcement, and he raised an eyebrow at that softness.

"Precog." He spat the word, the rest took on a sneering drawl. As he continued he swung one leg over the other, ankle bouncing a restless tune on nothing. "Drives most mad, most _humans_ mad I'll admit. I've dodged that bullet thanks to what I am little lady and the Sights not that far reaching that it's gunna unhinge me tomorrow night… I only see matters of death, relating to death, twelve hours ahead at _most_. That's not a guarantee I'm gunna snap."

"Snapped, past tense."

To her correction he snarled. "Belmont, you really are a mess, aren't you? What's it gunna take? A midnight tour of some horrors? A "Meet the werewolf pack next full moon" session?"

Silence, she looked at him, expression so open, soft, sad. He snorted, softened his snarl at her genuine mercy, and looked away. Down and back, to be exact, he stared at the threaded whip, his bane, ages back.

"Stop looking at me like I'm a lost Warg pup, alright?"

"You need help…"

"Fat lot of good that _institute_ did. They wanted to off me, and if I go to anyone for "help"," Quotations were supplied courtesy of four wiggling fore fingers, two per hand. "they'll just lock me up where I started."

"Well, if it's any consolation…" She offered weakly, wondering what he was staring at. Why the leather held such fascination for him. His blue eyes were tracing out it's fraying, reading something amongst the coils and tears. "The fact that you admit you have a problem means all isn't lost."

"Tell me," blue eyes flicked up, met hers. Save they weren't blue, not anymore, but a deep, pit, black. "Do whips normally scald people down to the bones, like yours did to me?"

Silence. Platitudes, condolences, assurances, all died on her lips. She recoiled, catching the change at last. All her efforts to "help" were felled by logic she couldn't dispute. Logic faltered before a revelation that lingered, partial reveled.

He smirked, fanglike tooth bared in the gesture.

"Thought not."

XXX

_What do you believe in? What you can weigh, measure, scoop in a cup and pour into some beaker somewhere? Apply flame, and change, notate, and insta-miracle. That's your faith, the faith of the tangible. The senses your scripture, your body divine (and unassailable save by time, you haven't figured time, save it's inevitable, but your trying to surpass it, watching your diet, taking those herbal junk teas…) and nothing exists for you beyond you and what concerns you._

Grandfather one said that faith without God was selfish. But then he'd backtrack, and say that God wasn't what they thought. Not the Catholics version of Him, or all the varying branches of Christianity, had gotten Him right.

"_They'd failed, somewhere along the line. To capture Him. His decrees. By encasing Him in mortal words (for the languages changed, did they ever, bloody history showed why) by casting Him in mortal images, we've lost something along the way."_

A book, black bound, generously embellished with blood. Shed blood, lost blood, accident from scrapes and tumbles, it's loss was all the same, it's gathering on the edges, in form of smears was as universal as the substance was itself… She flipped open the pages before patient black eyes.

_She _hadn't thrown it out yet, hadn't burned it. Hadn't thrown _him_ out yet, hadn't driven him out with threat from the whip (which surely would have burned). Her "good guy/gal" impulses, so the Devil had teased.

"The back, one of the later entries…" He advised.

Still, she lingered, about halfway in, and he'd leaned over her shoulder to better see why. She was taking the couch, his place. The exchange had been gentle; he'd lead her along, holding one of her shaking hands in two of his own. He'd coaxed her to stand with tears in her eyes, and shakes to her steps, coaxed her from chair to couch and with a push had put her in her place. Content she wasn't going to fall off, he loomed behind her, chin on her head. Hands on her shoulders, steadying, nails lightly scraping despite her robe.

"Ah... an older picture… A sketch really does add a few pounds…"

Mostly skeleton, partially bird and lizard, wholly nightmare. Such he identified with with a proud smile. It was a profile drawing done in shaking hands. The description was mere rambling. Still the title matched her present companions name... What this mad man insisted he be called.

She held onto sanity with fisted hands, refusing to let go.

"Turn the pages."

When she couldn't he slipped his hands over hers, and turned them for her.

"Ah, here we are!"

His hands stilled, hers did not. Looking down, though it was lines on parchment, a picture with text and nothing to be afraid of, her hands started to shake, badly now. The book nearly tumbled from her lap.

"Grandfather…"

Bound on the written word, he didn't turn. Rather the lines that made that familiar form were quite busy rearranging themselves. One step, another, he was walking along a plain (his limp in full attendance) that stretched before him as a line. A line really, was all it was. It stretched before him, dove and rose, wove and twisted all the better to sketch out foreground and embellishing on background as he/it went along.

She went to touch him, hot long fingers wound about hers. Stopping her form touching any of that black and white forest landscape. She felt his head shake, his chin digging in just so.

_No_.

Some things didn't have to be said.

A man, bend over, clutching his stomach. He started as an arch just ahead, surrounded by snow. Though silent for her there surely was sound for him. For Grandfather started, spied the man and staggered forward as quickly as his limp would allow, whip dragging behind him.

The sky was a black scratch that chased itself, stars alluded to via omission. The moon was a crescent scar in the distant corner as the scene played on...

Grandfather knelt, offering a hand over the shaking man's shoulders, lips twisting into a smile she always loved best. His voice was soft, soothing, offering kindness, assurance.

_You're going to be OK, where are you hurt? I can help._

Despite the bristles and dirt smears about his face, another allusion, to a hard hike and a few days without shaving she could see his mouth form the words. She started to smile. That was Grandfather, first to last.

All hints of a smile faded as the downed figure turned, twisted with a blinding smear speed, she couldn't make out much, save the edges. Claws, foot long monstrosities, flashed. Grandfather staggered back, black droplets trickling from his chest. Still low and surging the… the thing… snapped forward, teeth, muzzle, latched upon Grandfather's leg, one twist... the whip rose… It's fall was a splash of black that fled beyond the pictures parameters. Seeping down, into text and spreading far, mercifully obscuring the details of… of…

She lunged for the book, wanting to pull him up, pluck him out of a nightmare. Even though it was only his image. Hands snapped over hers, hauled her back, pinned her to the couch. Even as _it_ began to scream and snarl… writhe. She screamed, kicked, and the book fell from her lap, landing on the floor. Still screaming, she… it… they… She was released, and her only thought, her only action was left to her was to scramble away even as he surged forward. One kick, an impact with the wall, and the screaming book flopped closed.

All was quiet. Save outside, some car alarm was blaring. A dog barked.

"Now… Well... Now you know. Your Grandpa wasn't a liar. Does that help?"

She nodded, swallowed, was almost sick.

"Don't think you'll be needing more miracles, will you, Belmont?" His humor was back, as dark and biting as ever.

She shook her head wildly, then closed her eyes. The black made her recall, she stood, raced to the bathroom to be sick. When she was better she stagger to her bedroom, looked down at the bed, wished… just wished… But something beyond her, within her, made her dig in. Once the depths were breached she had enough sense left over to fumble on some real clothes and just enough strength to shuffle back into the living room.

_He_ was there, sprawled again, glass in hand, a quick trip to her fringe had left him something orange that bubbled and fizzed like a bad alka-seltzer by product. Immersed in his repast, he didn't notice her, talked to himself to fill the quiet.

"Funny, doesn't taste like oranges…" Another sip, a grin. "But damned if it aint good… Oh, there you are. Done sicking up yet?"

"I'll remember that next time you get sick." She flopped into the nearest chair.

"Can't." He drawled, twisting about in his sprawl to better stare at her. "Pact with Death, I spread plague, death, despair, and thus am exempt from it."

Damn him for his sing songing it. She moaned, closed her eyes, and while the black recalled to her of… There was nothing left to come up, so she was spared another mad dash to the bathroom.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why him, why, you, why me?"

"Him…" Black eyes closed, his tongue clicked in his mouth. Meditations done, those pits cracked open, seeming a might sunken. "Him, because he couldn't say no. Wouldn't say no. Age and pain and the like aside. He wouldn't leave anyone behind for anything, even if it was just taking on rabid beasties on the fringe of the world he was a Belmont. As for you... well it's the same reason. You're a Belmont. It's expected."

"I… I don't want this…" She waved to whip, to book (still fallen, mercifully shut) to him. "I... I'm just a bloody shrink, nothing else!"

"A shrink with connections." A sip, a sigh, bubbles crackles along his tongue, adding a rasp to his voice. "Granted, you didn't pick them, the name's yours though, and so's the curse."

"Curse?"

"You're conscience. Nothing more, nothing less." A swallow. "As for me…" He struggled to sit up, a fumbling fetch. "Orders are orders. Death's got something up his sleeve for both of us, or for your father. If you really want to say no, just say it, and I'll be nipping off to talk to your father next, that or your kids. But regardless of what you want, this century it's happening."

"What… what's happening?"

"The keening."


	6. Colors of the

Seeds We've Sown

Chapter 6

Colors of the rainbow

_AN: Very "M"ish chatter latter half in, We haven't hit Lemon land yet, but still I think the chatter warrants the rank and warning at least._

Puddle of a rainbow. The chromatic gloop spread slowly from the doomed, domed, mounds that were slowly melting. After all, no one sane kept a place below freezing.

And they, those two, were amongst the tentatively sane.

Daring silver against pigment inclined sweet, he took a scoop and swallowed it down with a jerky pre-brain freeze birdish bob. Benefits of… genetics… made certain that the snack would melt before full descent. Despite surety there was contradiction about. It burned despite being burned. Chill, it scalded.

But such was life.

Besides him, similarly armed, she set spoon to edges. Gathering droplets and turning them into pseudo topping. Once her spoon was full she dribbled them atop before scarfing down an unlady like bite. Chewing, despite the ludicrousness of the motion, she swallowed after a whimsical span and pleasant numbing. He snarked at her for that, his stab seemed dull and as listless as his black eyes. To that watered down bit of vitriol she stuck out a rainbow colored tongue, and to that he laughed.

The sound was as weary as his earlier spat of sarcasm, but it caught and set the dark of his eyes to twinkling wickedly.

It might be a bad thing, that he was making a comeback, that she was helping him make that comeback. Maybe, possibly, she twiddled the idea and morals but was blessedly numb so little wonder she fumbled the idea as surely as she fumbled the spoon. Mini rush, dizzy span, but she bent to fetch, ignoring the bright green splat on the frizzy grey rug. Head tingling and blessedly numb (they hadn't started with ice cream see, were only consulting it as an ending when he'd confessed that liquor wasn't doing anything for him) Belmont could hardly care less about splat.

Actually, her lips quirked at the irony, as inane as it made her sound that splat was sorta funny.

Suspecting stupidity and mischief, the man who wasn't snaked one hand around the ice cream box scooting it a little closer.

Clearly Death's right hand man… lizard… ('cept he didn't look like a lizard and screw him and his dry "Tail and scales are on vacation sweets." jib she wanted to know _why_, to that little spat of whining he'd taken the last bottle of beer from her and said _enough_)had a sweet tooth.

Now _that_ was funny.

She sniggered accordingly.

Speaking of sweet…. The ice cream lingered, a buffer between them. Face gaping wide and dripping a rainbow about its flaps and oozing it from the base, it'd be macabre if it weren't… well… a box. Discount ice cream, flavor sherbet, the picture that peeked out from the sagging flank wasn't anything special.

Buzz induced brilliance struck again. He was definitely hugging the sweet closer than necessary to his scaly side. Except Mr. Scales didn't well… have any, scales that is. Her giggles caused him to raise an eyebrow that she was sure his "real" picture didn't have. She wanted to ask, how he moved something he didn't have, was feeling brave enough to open her mouth and unleash the hounds of hell bent stupidiuty, stoopidille.. _whatever_…

"Don't ask again."

Warning done he pulled out another half melted lump –one lump had an edge, affirming and confirming that it was the last of her stash- and plopped the remnants on his plate. Long fingers curled on the plates edges, his half stoop screaming "mine all mine" without a word being said.

Wisdom had to work hard, but a bit of it pushed through, warning Claudia _not_ to ask him for half of his grotesquely large portion.

For a while there was only the sound of spoons scraping against plates. Both were more than content to say "screw it" they nursed brain freeze and bitterness turn by turn.

Finally, done quicker than she, he grumbled. "You could have warned me your roomie was a bitch."

"All she ever said was, "I don' ge' on with guys"." Playing with the last bite, she scraped it over the plate, spreading liquid glucose rainbow with each nudge. _Pretty colors_, that _non sequetor_ was alarming for some reason. "For all I knew she was… you know…" _Scrape scrape_. "Anyways, you pulled the, "I wanna get in your pants" act. That's not exactly constrect.. constree… to… well. Hell! You can't complain! You asked for a one night stand."

"Hey, one nighters are fine! Tension relief ya know! But what I _didn't_ ask was to have her fucking boyfriend make an appearance _during_, kick me out _after_, and take over before I'd even left the room!"

"…That wasn't her boyfriend."

Stony silence met that statement, finally he sought solace in his plate and got to licking never mind the mess he was making of his chin and rumpled shirt front.

She tried not to grimace.

All accidental he'd just explained the yelling, and thuds that had preceded his appearance and his whole hearted enthusiasm for crashing her attempt at escapism. He also pulled a TMI, but oh well. There were even odds with this all being a fuzzy little blurb tomorrow that she wouldn't care about. She could live with that.

Eyes closing, thoughts of drifting off inspiring her, all plans were canceled and her eyes bugged open at his next words.

"Can I kill them, both?"

"No." Surprise on the decline, she giggled, realizing he was joking. Death's servant and all that… Really him and his delusions… Eyes sliding closed, she was content to drift awhile, thus she never noticed the dead serious glimmer in his eyes. "It'd be mess… smuss…."

"I could make sure it wasn't." He offered eagerly.

"Rent."

"I'll pay a month."

"Next month."

"Move in?"

"N… Yer n…. not… lease…" There, that was somewhat coherent, he'd figure it out.

And clearly he did, because he chuckled. Finding a punch line when there wasn't one, besides. She should have been irritated but the world was sorta pulling back a bit.

And that was fine, more than fine.

It was such a crazy world after all. And she didn't want to catch crazy, because crazy was catching and they were all out of cold medicine...

Leaning against fluff, which was nothing to lean on at all, she fell back and almost over the arm of the couch. Half on, half off, and snoring besides, she definitely wasn't one of those fainting flowers that the Belmont's pushed out for varieties sake when broad shouldered oxen got boring. Lips quirking, he set aside his plate, on the floor quietly and wandered all of three steps before considering her. Tallish, hardly a waif, she wasn't beautifully blonde and willowy like the succubus spawn upstairs. She had something of the shoulders, but it wasn't so much so since she was bookish. Taking a flaccid hand he saw she had callouses in all the right places to confirm that hunch. Loosing her hand when a tug and squeeze, and some cajoling besides, didn't wake her, he considered his options. Decision reached he trailed his spindly digits up her arms, one lift and he held her up, her feet dangling limply a good few inches off the floor. Remembering last second not to bend her elbows backwards, he wrapped her arms the right way around his neck and took a quick look about the room.

While the couch was an option, (soft, near, and did he mention close too?) it was right under a window, a window with only flimsy cloth to keep out the sun.

Considering tomorrow morning and all the fun things it would engender… well it wasn't an option. So he'd look about, ground level mind, and see what was what.

A groan and scream of pleasure from above made him grit his aching teeth. Damn Belmont and her "no". Even piss faced drunk she'd the balls to say _no_.

And that wasn't good, not good at all.

After all, a Slogra had to eat, really _eat_, and not just sweets and "normal stuff" like the humans did.

A whimper in his ear and half whine as well made him grit said aching teeth, and let out a hiss of exasperation.

"I'm looking, I'm looking, bleeding ingrate! Keep up your whining and you'll get the couch, windows open wide, just like you deserve."

Like the dead the unconscious weren't inclined to say much of anything. Shame that, but perhaps it was better.

He'd of slit her throat himself if she'd gone on caterwauling like some other drunk people he'd known.

And killed.


End file.
